The Man Who Shaped and Saved the Constitution: John Marshall

To combat political party influences, America’s longest-serving chief justice aimed to unite his colleagues behind the Constitution.

Statue of John Marshall, at the John Marshall Memorial Park in Washington. The George F. Landegger Collection of District of Columbia Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress. Public Domain

“What George Washington was to American politics, John Marshall was to American justice.” Taken from the first paragraph of Joel Richard Paul’s book “Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times,” that assertion won two thumbs up from most American legal scholars.

For 34 years, Marshall guided the Supreme Court and, consequently, the Constitution through the roiling waters of political controversies and fierce antagonisms. Although the Marshall court ruled on several cases profoundly impacting American law and history, today most of us remember him for “Marbury v. Madison,” arguably the most important case in U.S. history as it established the Supreme Court as the vehicle for judicial review and constitutional interpretation, which was and remains its paramount function.